Open letter to
Attorney General-
Attorney General,
There are 425,000 households in Trinidad and Tobago (Office for National Statistics 2020). Fifty percent of these households (National Survey Nurture Nature 2020) keep animals in their premises and most of these households turn to animal welfare NGOs to help protect them from the firework disaster. This is the cross-section of the population that calls for protection from fireworks and the ruling government treats them with total contempt.
The government puts thousands of low-income people out of work by shutting down the scrap metal industry to protect citizens, but protects the wealthy fireworks suppliers who are hurting so much, including farmers; prioritizing fireworks (hurt and damage) over food production. Does this make any sense?
Last New Year’s Eve, a farmer in East Trinidad lost hundreds of chickens to fireworks and a few years ago another farmer in the center lost a thousand chickens to fireworks; and the government still protects fireworks. Does this make any sense?
We encourage all political parties to motivate a culture of compassion. Only in this way will we move forward as a nation. People need to be developed too, and we can hardly achieve that by putting thousands of people on low incomes out of work and then protecting the rich who are terrorizing a large part of the population. Surely there was a way to control the iron ore industry so that jobs could be saved. We know, however, that there is no way to effectively police fireworks. There is no need, however, because they are the rich and are protected by the government and given a free license while the rest of the population suffers. So what are we left to think? Is it the only way to change the government?
Roger Marshall
Trinidad and Tobago Fireworks Action Coalition
